"thought it should be noted that Dublin City Council only covers a small part of what is generally called Dublin!"

That may be true in terms of area, but Dublin City Council represents a much greater population density than any of the other administrative areas in the county.

And as a Dubliner myself, I don't consider anything north of Swords to be part of Dublin ;o)

"@23 The name of the country is Ireland. "Republic of Ireland" is not the name of the country in your "language of commerce" (I had a good laugh at that) or any other language, no matter what FIFA think. Check Bunreacht na hEireann if you like."

Oh I don't need to, because I'm pretty sure that Bunreacht na hEireann calls it Eire. But I accept your correction of my assertion on the official name - my bad. However I'm not a nationalist, so I have no problem with 'Republic of Ireland'.

But is English not our language of commerce? You can laugh all you want, but it doesn't make it any less true.

"um "Republic of Eire"? The name of the place is Ireland."

Well in English (our language of commerce) it's the Republic of Ireland. The 'official' (read: Irish language) name is Eire, but English-speaking Irish people almost never refer to the country as such.

Indeed, it seems the only people who actually do say 'Eire' on a regular basis are the British, probably as shorthand to distinguish the ROI from Northern Ireland (though that doesn't make it any less unusual/amusing to me).

But back to the topic: I would be inclined to agree with others here that the city council is just making excuses. Allegedly, they have a sorry reputation for half-completed projects, so it's not much of a surprise.